Chatham News

HARWICH — Without taking a formal vote, Monomoy Regional School Committee members made it clear last week that they’re not excited at the prospect of providing the town of Chatham with access to 1.5 acres off Stepping Stones Road for a new senior center.
Meeting on Feb. 11, the committee discussed the possibility of declaring as surplus the parcel of land between Stepping Stones Road and the Old Colony Rail Ta...

CHATHAM — The U.S. Coast Guard has abandoned plans to remove the lighted whistle buoy “C” that marks the entrance to Chatham Harbor.
The news was announced last week by the Coast Guard, which had previously argued that the navigational aid was too difficult to keep on its station in high winds and heavy seas. The Coast Guard pledged to “pursue
other additional mooring configurations to help better keep th...

CHATHAM – There is a level of “institutional stress” underlying next year's proposed town budget that may indicate it's time to step back, look at priorities and “take our foot off the gas,” according to a report from the finance committee.
The fincom had a “qualitatively different response to the budget” this year rather than the usual quantitative approach, Chairman Stephen Daniel told selectmen last week. R...

$500K Sought In Upcoming Special Town Meeting
CHATHAM – When the Army Corps of Engineers dredge Currituck left town recently, it had not yet completed clearing shoals from the Stage Harbor entrance channel.
“It's much improved,” Harbormaster Stuart Smith said of the channel, which has silted in considerably over recent months. The Coast Guard was scheduled to move buoys to mark the best water, he said, but ...

After 148 Acres And $19 Million
CHATHAM – Tax bills sent to property owners in May will be the last to include a 3 percent surcharge for the Cape Cod Land Bank, which ended Jan. 1 after 20 years.
During those two decades, the town used more than $19 million in Land Bank funds to preserve 148 acres of open space. The latest and last purchase through the Land Bank, 4.17 acres of waterfront land on Goose Pond,...

CHATHAM – Monomoy Regional Middle School Principal Mark Wilson has thoroughly enjoyed his more than 34 years in education, but the time has come for a new adventure. On June 30, Wilson will retire in order to spend more time with his family.
“For half my life I've been an administrator,” Wilson said in a Feb. 11 phone interview. “To do this job well you have to give the gift of time: coming in early, staying l...

CHATHAM – The town has had no word from National Grid regarding the incorrectly buried gas lines within the West Chatham Roadway Project area, and officials say work on the road reconfiguration may not resume until the fall.
If that happens, the project may not be completed until December 2022, more than a year later than originally projected.
The current schedule posted on the project's website shows utili...

CHATHAM – Shifting sands make for unstable ground, as the operator of a bulldozer working on the Outermost Harbor dredging project found out Saturday.
The bulldozer was moving sand at a dewatering pond set up just outside and south of the harbor, the entrance to which is being dredged by Outermost Harbor Marine.
“The sand just gave way underneath the bulldozer,” said Harbormaster Stuart Smith, and the machi...

CHATHAM – Shareen Davis announced this week that she will seek a second three-year term on the board of selectmen.
Davis said she'd like to continue working on several initiatives that are important to her, including Chatham 365 and a new senior center. She also said she'd like to work to try to attract academic institutes to the town as a way to help focus on climate change.
“We're really set here in town ...

CHATHAM – Selectmen set Saturday, March 7 as the date for a special town meeting to address a petition to consider property off Stepping Stones Road as a possible location for a new senior center.
The board has yet to take a position on the proposal, submitted by a group of residents who say the site at 1610 Main St. in West Chatham currently being studied as a senior center location will be too expensive to d...

CHATHAM – A special town meeting will be held to consider an alternative site for a new senior center.
A group of residents filed a petition last Thursday to investigate land off Stepping Stones Road that is part of the Monomoy Regional Middle School campus. The wooded 1.599 acres sits between the road and the Old Colony Rail Trail and is not currently being used by the school. Town Clerk Julie Smith certified...

CHATHAM – Juliet Bernstein remembers riding with her family in a horse-drawn surrey so that her mother could vote for the first time, following the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920.
“I was 7 but it truly impressed me,” she said in a recent email.
Bernstein, who holds the Boston Post Cane as the town's oldest resident, suggested that the 100th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote would be an a...